The Broken Font (Historical Novel). Moyle Sherer
with which he was deservedly familiar. He dreamed that it was the statute fair, and that they were roasting an ox whole in the market-place of Warwick. The frontlet of the poor beast was gaily gilded, and the horns were painted blue, and gilt at the tips. The mighty spit turned slowly round. On one side stood a fat cook basting the brown loins that the beast might not burn, and on the other a stout and expert carver occasionally stopped the rude spit, and with a long broad knife detached savoury portions for the greedy by-standers, who, on receiving the same, dropped their penny of thanks into the cap of the carver, and, slipping out of the crowd, made way for others. Dreams are to the dreamer realities. Philip’s mouth watered: he thought he had never before seen beef so delicious; fat and lean in their exact proportions; the meat of the finest grain, juicy, and full of gravy; but then his suit, his badge, his pride of place, forbade his wishes: partake of the dainty he could not, but he might go near, just out of curiosity, and for mere amusement. Lo and behold! with an angry bellow forth leaped the furious beast, his eyes all fire, the spit point issuing from his foaming mouth, his carcass smoking and dripping, and half the sirloins cut away. He singled old Philip from the crowd; he lowered his blue and gilded horns; he shook the spit between his grinning teeth; and as he made his rush, old Philip died a thousand deaths in one, and woke into another world—that other he had so shortly quitted. Nor was the object on which his waking eyes first rested exactly calculated to compose his terrors. A crowd of noisy clowns was standing round him; and in the midst of them, upon a hurdle, they bore an old withered and bony woman, crooked and blear-eyed, who was counted the witch of that neighbourhood, and well known by the name of yellow Margery of the Sand Pit.
They set down the hurdle close at Philip’s feet, and called loudly for justice and Sir Oliver. “Hag!”—“Crone!”—“Beldame!”—“To the faggot!”—“To the river,”—“Justice in the King’s name!”—were the various cries by which the impatient rustics frighted all the household of Milverton from their propriety and their pleasures, and brought most of them forth to the gate, and the rest to the hall steps, or the casements. Sir Oliver himself came forth, among the first, loudly rating them. “Why, how now, ye rude varlets; is Milverton a pot-house, and the seat of justice an ale bench? Speak—what would you?—speak, you, Morton—you should know better than to head a rabble rout of this fashion.”
“Why then, troth, Sir Oliver, as thou art a worshipful knight, and a king’s justice, not man, woman, nor child in the whole parish can sup their porridge in peace or sleep o’ nights for this old witch Margery: we’ve crown witness enough to hang, drown, and burn her twenty times over.”
“Not so fast, not so fast, neighbour,” said Sir Oliver, seating himself on the stone from which old Philip had retired melting with fear. “Where are the witnesses, and what have they to say? Let them stand forth.”
“First, here’s Master Crumble, the clerk; then, afore him, here’s Master Screw, the great witch-finder from Coventry; and here’s Jock, my carter; and old Blow, the blacksmith, and Pollard, your worship’s woodman.”
“Stop, stop, I can’t hear all at once—say thy say, Crumble.”
“Why, your worship, my sow—your worship, my sow is dead: all of a sudden, this blessed morn, as I poured out her wash, down she lay all in the shivers; and if the poor dumb creature had been her own flesh and blood, my old woman could not ha’ taken on more. Says I, directly, ‘This is a bit of Margery’s work; for I see her brush the old sow with her black petticoat at the lane end, Sunday was a week.’ It’s quite a plain case you see, Sir Oliver.”
“Stand back, you silly man.”
“Silly, forsooth. I am thirty-seven year clerk of the parish, come next Lammas, and I say it’s writ on the Bible, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ ”
“That is true enough—it is so; but how do you know a witch?”
“Why, I know that a man’s not a witch.”
“That is true, thou art a man and no witch. But how dost thou know one?”
“Why, it is an old woman, not to say any one, but a crook back, with a hooked nose, and a peaked chin like Margery.”
“Master Crumble, I have done with thee, and in the matter of thy sow’s death do acquit Margery.”
“That’s not crown law, nor Gospel charity,” said the old clerk, as he stepped back into the crowd, who muttered and whispered among each other till the next witness spoke out. This was the witch-finder.
“Please your worship, I am ready to make oath that she hath a familiar, always about her in the shape of a brown mouse; for I have seen it crawling about her neck, and playing and feeding in her hand.”
Here there was a mixed utterance of triumph and horror in the crowd, and Sir Oliver himself looked grave.
“What dost thou answer to this, Margery?”
“They say true in that they say I have a tame mouse; and haven’t court ladies their monkeys, and their parrots, and their squirrels, and their white mice—and why mayn’t an old lone woman have her pet as well as they?” As thus she spoke, she held out her open hand, and a lively brown mouse sat up quietly on the palm seemingly quite tame. There was a slight shudder ran through the veins of all present; and Cuthbert Noble, fearing lest this mode of defence might rather hinder than help her, went up to advise her better.
“A warm blessing on you, Master Noble—the blessing of one whom you have saved before, and are trying to save again.”
Here Cuthbert stopped her, and observed to Sir Oliver aloud, that this mouse was but such a pet as a shepherd’s boy might play with, and that the old woman, whose ways were odd, had once told him that when she was a child and her little brother died, she had taken to a field mouse which he had petted, and that she had ever since as one died procured another.
The worthy knight was now for discharging Margery; but Farmer Morton insisted that they should hear his carter’s story. Accordingly Jock stepped forward, and smoothing down his hair said—“Please your worship, I lost my best startups (high shoes) the day before last cattle fair, and precious mad I was; and Sukey Sly told me if I went to old Margery, and took her a wheaten loaf, and crossed her palm with a silver penny, she’d tell me where to find ’em. Well, I went, and the old woman said she didn’t want to have aught to say to me. ‘Look ye,’ says I, ‘Margery, here I be, here’s the bread and here’s the money: I ha’ lost my startups, and you must tell me where to find them; and I wo’n’t budge till you do.’ So with that she puts her mouse down against the loaf, and finely he nibbled away, and she set of a brown stud for a bit, and then told me to wait for the first full moon, and then, exactly at midnight, to walk backwards from the yard gate to the dung mixen, with my eyes fixed on the moon, and that I should find them on the mixen; but if it were before or after twelve o’clock, and if I looked behind me, or took my eyes off the moon, the charm would be broke, and I should never see my startups again; and sure enough I never have seen ’em.”
There was a little titter among the women; and Sukey Sly, whose legs were set off in a pair of new red stockings, could not suppress a laugh at Jock’s story: but the clowns called out for justice, and Sir Oliver had much ado to pacify them. He did so at last, by assuring the old woman, that, on condition she told what was the great charm by which she was said to cure diseases, she should be set free.
“Cure diseases! God bless you, Master! why I’m a poor helpless old body, that can’t cure myself, and should starve but for pity,” said Margery. “However, may be, once or so in a quarter there comes some wilful body like Jock, with a tied-up face, and makes a witch of me, whether or no, and will have the charm. Then I take his loaf and his money, and I say—
“ ‘My loaf in my lap,
My penny in my purse;
Thou art never the better;
I’m never the worse.’ ”
This confession was followed by laughter, in which most joined; and, except the clerk of the parish and the balked witch-finder,